


A Day Like Any Other

by duplicity



Series: Prompt Fills [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst, Death, Ghost Harry Potter, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Horcrux Creation, M/M, Murder, Mystery, Plot Twists, Student Tom Riddle, Time Loop, harry is trying to SAVE your dumb ass for god's sake, tom is really stupid in this one lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duplicity/pseuds/duplicity
Summary: Every Saturday morning, Tom Riddle wakes with the intention of opening the Chamber of Secrets.Every Saturday morning, Tom Riddle dies.Slowly, the true horror of Tom's predicament reveals itself. Why the Hogwarts ghost named Harry Potter is suddenly acting so strange. Why the idea of going to the Chamber sends unease skittering down his spine. Why he wakes screaming every morning, fire boiling in his veins.As Tom and Harry investigate, the murky past unravels: they are trapped in a day that repeats over and over, with each iteration ending in Tom's untimely demise. To solve this puzzle, Tom must answer the question that has plagued him all his life: what does it truly take to stop death?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Prompt Fills [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686931
Comments: 76
Kudos: 213
Collections: distractions 💬 halloween big bang 2020





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Top7879](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Top7879/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [Initial_Non-Applicable_ (Top7879)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Top7879/pseuds/Initial_Non-Applicable_) in the [Distractions_Halloween_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Distractions_Halloween_2020) collection. 



> yet another project by me that, by all means, should have been a one-shot 
> 
> this one is for Top, who always has such interesting prompts. i apologize for derailing entirely from the original concept (again).

Saturday morning, Tom woke up feeling refreshed. There was none of the usual grogginess from waking after a late night. His mind was sharp and his body was responsive, not sluggish. Tom felt so well-rested, in fact, that he could not quite remember when he had gone to bed the night before. No dreams, no nightmares—only the deep-seated satisfaction of a comfortable eight hours spent utterly unconscious.

Sitting up, Tom swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached, blindly, for his wand on the side table as was his habit to do.

He grasped the loop of his wand holster, lifting it from the tabletop and strapping to his arm. The holster was made from a dark grey dragonhide, a birthday gift from Orion Black.

A quick glance at his dormitory showed that it was entirely empty. Tom had a habit of rising late on Saturdays; the result of spending his Friday evening out past curfew. Being a Prefect had its benefits—Tom made use of his privileges by ransacking the Hogwarts library under the cover of darkness.

There were no wrongs being committed. Tom was permitted to be out after hours and had a pass for the Restricted Section. It was simply easier for him to go about his business when there was no one else around.

Today was an excellent example of that. Today would be a monumental day: the re-opening of the fabled Chamber of Secrets.

Tom stood and went about his morning routine. The Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff was today. Everyone would be at the pitch and watching the game. It was the perfect opportunity for him to walk about unnoticed, and so he planned to take advantage.

After donning his robes, Tom ran a comb through his hair, smoothing the line of the part. Not a hair out of place. Everything that happened today would unfold according to plan. Pleased with this thought, Tom put his toiletries away and returned to his dorm.

Once there, he went to his wardrobe to fetch his cloak. The billow of the heavy fabric would hide his shape better and make him less identifiable to anyone who happened to spot him from a distance. Tom pulled his cloak on and fastened it securely. The weight of the material on his shoulders gave him a sense of great importance.

He had been planning this day for some time. Careful research, months of planning. After uncovering the location of the Chamber, it had taken every scrap of self-restraint he possessed to close the opening and leave it behind. His absence at the time would have been noted; he had to be patient, to wait for the right moment.

Today, as it was, would be that moment.

Tom straightened and eyed his reflection in the singular, full-length mirror that sat in the room. It belonged to Abraxas, who admittedly spent a great deal of time standing before it, preening, but when Abraxas was not around, Tom liked to make use of it.

Satisfied with what he saw in his reflection, Tom spun around and made to leave the room. The Common Room was also mostly deserted. Tom greeted the few people that were there and cited a study project, bidding them goodbye for the day.

He had hardly stepped foot into the corridor when he heard someone call his name.

"Tom!"

The voice was familiar; Tom glanced over. It was Harry Potter, dressed eternally in a style of Gryffindor robes that were about twenty years out of fashion.

“Hello, Harry,” he said politely. Tom made a habit of befriending everyone in the castle, people and ghosts alike. One never knew when someone could prove useful.

To those who did not know him, Harry was a shy ghost. He tended to drift around the Quidditch pitch during the day, meaning it was nearly impossible to spot him. In the evenings, however, Tom often caught the silent spectre wandering the hallways with a wistful expression. Tom had never thought to ask how Harry had died, but he supposed that it could not have been _too_ tragic given Harry's relatively spotless appearance.

But the point persisted: Harry did not interact much with the staff or students of Hogwarts. Over the past five years, however, Harry had taken a liking to Tom Riddle. Sometimes Harry would come by the library to say hello and ask after Tom's studies. Tom didn't mind the interruptions—Harry was always considerate and hardly spoke to anyone. It was flattering for Tom to be selected as the favourite of the school's most reclusive ghost.

"How are your studies?" Harry asked brightly.

Normally, Tom would have welcomed this question. As it was, he had more important things to be doing today. "They're well, thank you. I have a seven-foot essay on the fourth and fifth Goblin wars to write for Professor Binns, due Monday morning." This was true, though Tom had already completed this essay four days ago. Hopefully the subject was off-putting enough that Harry would leave him be.

"Oh, that sounds fun!"

Was that... cheerfulness? Tom blinked as though doing so would miraculously make that statement more logical.

"Are you headed to the library now?" Harry asked. "Can I come with you?"

"There's a Quidditch match today," Tom said instead. "Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff. Wouldn't you prefer to go watch?"

Harry liked Quidditch. He liked watching the matches. Tom had never attended a single one of them; he tended to rely on Harry to provide the details of the most important plays.

"I don't mind going with you," Harry said after a pause. Then he added haltingly, "I can help you with your essay?"

"Thank you for the offer, but I can complete the assignment myself." Tom was beginning to get annoyed. He took a careful step to the left and maneuvered himself around Harry. From there, he continued down the corridor while Harry floated at a steady pace beside him.

"Okay," Harry said quickly. "Then I can keep you company."

"I don't need company."

Harry wasn't normally this insistent. Tom flexed his jaw and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. Now he had to act like he was going to the library because Harry wouldn't leave him alone. This was derailing his morning.

Tom took the next left turn and walked towards the stairs. He had to figure out a way to get rid of his ghostly companion.

Harry followed, hovering anxiously. His eyes seemed to flicker in and out of focus behind his transparent glasses.

Tom wanted to be blunt, to be rude and hurtful so the ghost would leave him be. Only he had worked hard to maintain a pleasant relationship with Harry. If he was cruel now, Harry might not talk to him again. Although, Tom thought, he was the _only_ person that Harry talked to. Perhaps the loneliness would drive Harry back to him, especially if Tom took care to be extra kind afterwards.

They reached the top of the stairs. Tom steeled himself and asked, "How did you die, Harry?"

The sudden question had the expected result: Harry flinched, looking uncomfortable. "Why do you ask, Tom?"

Tom paused as though to think it over. "You avoid everyone, people and ghosts alike. You only lurk in the castle late at night when there are no others around. I am the only person you spend any time with. Some of the students here are even unaware of your existence.

"Unlike other Hogwarts ghosts, your physical form does not show any inflicted damage. Whatever unfinished business you have here, you do not seem very eager to resolve it. So I ask, Harry: how did you die?"

Harry stared distantly at him. "I don't think I want to answer that."

"Then don't." Tom shrugged and began to walk anew.

Harry trailed behind, slower this time. "You never asked me that before."

"It only just occurred to me," Tom lied. "Ghosts never die peacefully, you know. Did you anger someone?"

"No."

"Cheat? Lie? Steal something?"

"No," Harry said, sounding upset.

"I wouldn't blame you if you had," Tom continued. "It would certainly explain why you hide away all the time."

"I didn't do anything, Tom."

"Curious." Tom hummed, a light sound in the back of his throat. "Where in the castle did you die?"

"I said I didn't want to answer."

"Your form shows little to no signs of decay, as I mentioned. So it must not have been too long before they found the body." Tom quickened his pace. "If I searched for your name in Hogwarts' student records, would I find the answer there? You told me you attended two decades ago; that certainly narrows it down."

"Why are you—" Harry started, desperation in his voice, then stopped. He was silent for so long that Tom had to check Harry was still with him. The ghost's mouth had fallen into a flat line, his brows furrowed together. "Yes," Harry said quietly, "you would probably find it if you looked, Tom."

"Nothing too public," Tom said clinically. "Two decades and hardly anyone speaks about you. Was it covered up somehow, I wonder? Dippet would have been Headmaster still. He's strict enough that I can't quite imagine what tragic event could have occurred under his watch."

Harry floated a few steps ahead and spun around so that he could look at Tom directly. "People see what they want to see," Harry said in a monotone. "You of all people know that."

Tom frowned. That was true enough, but he wasn't sure how it related to their current conversation. He thought on Harry's statement, trying to make sense of it.

People saw what they wanted to see. They saw what they _expected_ to see. Harry's death was a tragedy, surely, but it was not one that people wished to linger on. That meant there was finger pointing involved.

Children didn't die in schools because the adults around them were competent. Children died in schools because there was _incompetence._

That explained why Harry didn't tend to frequent the more popular areas of the castle. The staff and student body must have failed him somehow. "Did someone kill you?" Tom asked, now genuinely curious. "Or was it an accident?"

Harry turned away again. "Stop asking, Tom. I'm not saying."

They continued in the direction of the library. The Quidditch match must have started by now, Tom thought glumly. Here he was, stuck with an irritating, mysterious ghost. Perhaps it was time to exercise some bluntness.

"Harry," said Tom, interjecting a note of patience into his voice. "I understand that you do not have many friends in the castle, but I would prefer it if you left me to go to the library by myself. I don't want your company today." There, that was civil enough, wasn't it? There was nothing in that statement that was untrue.

Thankfully, Harry did not seem to be offended. "I thought so," Harry said, almost absently. "You were only saying those things to try and get me to leave."

Tom was annoyed at being caught wrongfooted, but his patience had taken a steep decline; he was no longer thinking as clearly as he usually would. "Yes, which begs the question: why are you _still here?"_

Harry smiled, wan. "You really do hate it when people don't perform to expectations."

Tom halted in place and turned to his right. Harry no longer seemed angry or upset. If anything, he appeared to be at peace with the turn the conversation had taken.

Tom had already wasted too much time on this. He grit his teeth. There was a simple solution for this problem, a fact taken directly out of his second-year Charms textbook. Tom drew his wand and cast the most powerful, non-verbal _Lumos_ he could manage on such short notice.

The light served a double purpose. First of all, magical light would disturb the ectoplasm that Harry was formed of, preventing him from moving for a short period of time. Second of all, his wand light was powerful enough to blind Harry, who still wore glasses even if they were ghostly.

Harry made a strange noise of surprise and perhaps minor discomfort. Tom gave his wand a twist, using the motion he had practiced many times in the past, and separated the burst of light from the tip of his wand.

The orb hovered in place, allowing Tom to make his escape. The magic would fade after some time, but by then Tom would be far, far away—specifically, he would be in the girl's bathroom on the second floor.

Satisfied with the retribution he had delivered, Tom departed with confidence, lengthening his strides as he went. There was no way of knowing how long the Quidditch match would be; he had to make up for the time he had lost while pandering to Harry.

After all, what did one little ghost matter in the grand scheme of things? Tom was the heir of Salazar Slytherin. The Chamber of Secrets was his birthright. Who was Harry to try and stop him from achieving his goals, from achieving greatness?

There would be boundless treasures waiting from him in the chamber. Knowledge beyond his wildest imaginings, ancient magical items that contained untold power. All this and more, Tom could picture clearly in his mind's eye.

Emboldened by this fantasy, Tom hastened his pace further yet. The chamber was calling to him.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke feeling uneasy. The vestiges of a nightmare were slipping away like a flickering film reel. He could not recall what had happened. It was uncommon for him to have nightmares; it was even rarer for him to have forgotten it entirely by morning.

Strangely, he also could not remember when he had gone to bed the night before. Perhaps he had stayed up too late. No matter. Today was an important day. There would be plenty of time to sleep later.

Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his wand on the side table, as was his habit to do.

His wand was not there.

Tom stared at his bedside table. Every night without fail, he left his wand and holster there. It was habitual. Never in his life had this happened to him before.

A quick glance at his dormitory showed that it was entirely empty. This was not unusual; Tom had a habit of rising late on Saturdays. Had someone taken his wand while he had been sleeping? The mere idea of it was ridiculous. Tom had wards placed around his bed and his belongings. If his wards had been disturbed, he would have noticed. His magic would have alerted him to the intrusion.

His wand was his most treasured possession. It was a symbol of his heritage and his power. Tom polished his yew wand regularly and kept it secure in its dragonhide holster. Not once during his five-year ownership of it had it ever been misplaced.

Tom was uncomfortable. Without his wand, he felt exposed, bereft. He had planned to visit the Chamber of Secrets today, to at last claim the birthright which belonged to him, but this had derailed his plans significantly.

Quickly, then, his discomfort shifted to anger. Someone had done this. Someone had stolen his wand; that was the only explanation for its disappearance. Whoever had done this was going to pay, and pay dearly. Tom did not make a habit of punishing his enemies here at Hogwarts, not while he was under the watchful eyes of the professors, but today he would make an exception.

The first order of business was to prepare for the day. Tom stood up and started his usual morning routine. The Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff was today. His dormmates would be at the pitch and watching the game. He would have to attend the game so he could interrogate them. One way or another, he would get his wand back.

* * *

It took most of the Quidditch match for Tom to piece together how the morning had gone while he was asleep. No one had seen anything. No one had stolen anything. There had been a period of at least twenty to thirty minutes after the last person had left the dorm room, leaving Tom alone, where someone could have come in to steal the wand.

So even after all that, Tom was no closer to determining who was at fault or where his wand had gone. For the time being, he had taken Avery's wand to aid him in his search. It was not a perfect fit, but it was unfortunately the most compatible one available to him.

It took several tracking spells for Tom to discern the general location of his wand. It took several _hours_ for him to wander through the castle, searching for it. Tom's entire afternoon was swallowed up by what was rapidly becoming the world's most enraging treasure hunt.

Finally, after what felt like hundreds of turns and dozens of flights of stairs, Tom located his wand. This was a section of the castle that he had never been in before, let alone been aware of its existence.

Tom cast the tracking spell again to check he was in the correct spot. Avery's wand lit up, directing him towards a dusty, deserted corridor that was cluttered with spider webs. In the middle of this corridor was an old, battered broom closet.

With a solid grip on Avery's wand, Tom wrenched the handle of the cupboard open with his free hand.

Much to his confusion, inside of the broom closet was Harry Potter.

Harry was sitting on the floor of the closet, so much as ghosts _could_ sit, and he had his arms wrapped around his knees. Tom's yew wand was there, too, on the floor by Harry's feet.

"Harry?" Tom asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Um." Harry was avoiding his gaze, instead looking at the far wall of the cramped cupboard space. "I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for that."

Tom picked up his wand—his holster was nowhere to be seen, he noted—and put Avery's away. His mind was trying and failing to come up with a reasonable explanation.

Harry slowly uncurled his limbs from their cramped position and stood up. His feet phased through the bottom of the broom closet, and it was only then that Tom noticed how _weary_ Harry looked. Tom had never seen a ghost look tired before. Sad and depressed, yes, but Harry's face was worn with what could only be fatigue.

"Did you take my wand?" Tom asked slowly. Ghosts could move objects for short distances but this? This was entirely unheard of. Tom's wand had been transported from the Slytherin dungeons all the way up to... wherever the hell they were. They were at _least_ seven floors above ground level.

Harry opened his mouth to reply. His legs were wobbling. Tom felt like he ought to be more concerned about that—could ghosts faint from exhaustion?—only he was utterly thrown by the revelation that his wand had been stolen by a ghost. Not only that, but a ghost he had considered himself to be on friendly terms with.

"I... did." Harry blinked sluggishly, swaying on the spot.

Tom narrowed his eyes. "Why did you do it?"

"I—" Harry licked his lips once, twice, which must have been a nervous habit carried over from his time amongst the living. "I did it to help you."

Someone must have cast the Confundus Charm on Harry. That would explain the strange behaviour and the lack of coherency. "Did you talk to anyone this morning?" Tom asked. "Any of the students? The professors?" Harry tended to not talk to anyone, but there was the slim chance that Harry might recall something notable.

Harry's eyes focused for a moment on Tom's face. "No," he said, and the response was lucid enough that Tom believed it.

"Then what—" Tom started, angry now that his original hypothesis had been disproven.

Harry let out a weak wheeze and tipped over. Tipped right over, and phased right into the floor, vanishing into the stone.

Tom stared at the spot where Harry had been standing. Floating. Whatever. None of this made any sense.

Slowly, his anger ran its course, burning to a slow, smouldering death in his chest. Tom breathed out and attempted to regain his focus. There would be time, later, to find out exactly why his wand had been stolen.

For now, there was an hour left before dinner. He would have preferred to do this during the Quidditch match, when less people would have been present in the castle, but the theft of his wand had provided him with a unique alibi. His dormmates would tell anyone who asked after him that he was off searching for it.

Tom mourned the loss of his holster as he tucked his wand into the pocket of his robes. It was one of the finer things he owned, and now it was Merlin-knew-where in the castle.

Another thing to ask Harry about, he noted with no small amount of irritation.

But again, it was a task for later. Tom cast one final glance to the empty broom cupboard. It was an odd hiding place to choose. Cramped and uncomfortable.

Tom shut the cupboard with a resounding 'thunk' that dislodged a good deal of dust from the top of it. It was no concern of his. He had a chamber to go and open.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up feeling uneasy. He could not remember going to bed the night before.

He thought that he may have dreamed something, though. There were flashes of light in his mind's eye, distorted scenes from an old film reel. The more he tried to remember, however, the more it slipped away from him.

That was fine. He had more important things to be doing.

Tom sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and reached for his wand on the side table.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up. He could not remember going to bed the night before, and he could not pinpoint why this made him feel uneasy.

Without thinking, he reached for his wand. The motion was familiar. What was not familiar was the way his stomach twisted with unexplained anxiety.

Tom ignored it.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up. Something felt very, _very_ wrong.

Still, Tom sat up and reached for his wand.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up _screaming._ His lungs were aflame, seized by a wretched burning sensation that rapidly cascaded through the rest of his body, the flames licking through him, boiling his blood in his veins.

Though the pain subsided almost instantly, vanishing like the lingering effects of an awful nightmare, his mindless panic took long, agonizing minutes to fade.

Tom's breaths came hard and fast as he desperately tried to get a grip on himself. His entire body was trembling violently, his back sheathed in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest.

On instinct, he reached for his wand. His hand was shaking. Tom stared at it, willing it to go still. He'd not been this affected by a nightmare in years.

A glance around the dorm showed that it was empty. No one had witnessed his surreal moment of insanity.

Slowly, then, Tom went through the motions of his regular morning routine. He washed, dressed, and made his way downstairs. He was so unnerved by the morning's traumatic event that his greetings to those in the Slytherin common room were half-hearted at best.

Tom stepped out of the common room, ill at ease. Once in the corridor, he faltered. There was no one here, but he could not help but feel like there was. Or that there was _supposed_ to be someone here.

Just outside the castle, the Quidditch game between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff was about to begin. Tom knew this, and he knew exactly what he had planned to do today because of that very Quidditch match.

  
Something as juvenile as a nightmare was not about to deter him from his ambitions. Tom pushed the tension from his shoulders and gave his arms a stretch. Today he would step foot in that sacred space in which his ancestor had made history. Today _he_ would make history.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom Riddle enters the Chamber of Secrets and Messes Shit Up Royally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw minor character death, gore, violent, graphic descriptions in this chapter!

Saturday morning, Tom woke up.

Tom woke up, and the first thing he thought was that it was not supposed to be Saturday morning. It was not supposed to be Saturday morning, and he was supposed to be dead.

Tom sat up and looked over at where his wand rested on the bedside table. He could remember, very vividly, how it had been in his hand only moments earlier. He could remember the terrible, high-pitched _screaming—_

The details were vanishing from his mind. Tom dragged his palms over his face, groaning. He had been in the middle of opening the chamber, when... when _what?_ What had happened?

Tom picked up his wand and cast: _"Tempus."_ Indeed, it was Saturday morning.

Had he dreamed up all of the Saturday that existed in his brain? Why was it that he remembered doing all of this before? Waking, grabbing his wand, and walking out to the common room?

Tom rose and got ready for the day. Each motion dragged on, echoes of the previous day crawling underneath his skin.

Once he was washed and dressed, he went to the cupboard to retrieve his cloak. He opened the door and stared into its depths. The inside of it was as tidy as ever. His cloak was draped over one of the hangers, just as he had left it… yesterday. Tom's fingers drummed a nervous beat against the wood. After a second, he shut the door without retrieving his cloak at all.

Tom went downstairs, greeted his housemates, and exited the common room. Out in the corridor was the ghost named Harry Potter.

"Tom?" Harry's voice was small, quiet.

"Yes, Harry?"

Harry sucked in a breath—or at least appeared to—and fixed Tom with a pleading gaze. "I wanted to ask you a favour."

"A favour?" Tom could not recall this having happened yesterday. In fact, he had not seen Harry at all yesterday.

"I need you to _promise_ me that you will listen to me," Harry said, still in that awful, beseeching tone. "Just please listen and hear me out."

"I promise I will hear you out," Tom said, after a pause. "I will listen to what you have to say, Harry."

Harry stepped closer, eyes wide and imploring. "Please do not go and open the Chamber of Secrets today."

Tom felt something in his stomach drop and fall away. His head was abruptly filled with static, a strange sensation that he could only compare to having his head plunged underwater. Harry was telling him not to go. Harry was telling him _not to go._

Tom had to go. He had no choice. There was no other way.

"I'm sorry," Tom said roughly. It was the first time he had genuinely apologized for anything in recent memory. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I have to go."

Harry's expression did not change. It did not shift to anger, did not crumple with pain. Instead, Harry stepped aside and gestured down the hall. When he spoke, it was resigned. "Okay, Tom. I'll see you later?"

Tom swallowed. "See you later."

* * *

The second floor was quiet. Everyone was at the Quidditch match. Tom stepped into the girl's bathroom, which was empty, and moved towards the sink.

The last time he had visited this place, he had been giddy with triumph, with excitement. He had revealed the opening and swore to return at a later date to explore it more thoroughly. Now, however, all he felt was a horrible kind of dread.

If there was anything Tom feared, it was death. With the sensation of being burned alive fresh in his mind, that fear seemed all the more realistic.

Something had happened in the Chamber of Secrets. This was the only reasonable explanation. Tom must have triggered some strange, archaic magic that had caused him to repeat Saturday over again.

Knowing this did not reassure him. 

Tom shoved his hands into the pockets of his robes to steady himself. There were objects in his pockets—pockets that were magically expanded to carry more than they appeared to. There were items that Tom had on him at all times. Parchment and quill, a pouch full of coins, a textbook or two, and his personal diary.

From the mirror above the sink, his reflection stared out at him. The part of his hair was perfect. Tom inhaled sharply and slid his wand into his hand. He was forewarned and prepared. He was prepared.

_"Open."_

The sink slid away, revealing the dark, gaping tunnel that lived beneath it. Tom gazed into its depths, ignoring the dread that continued to lurk in the back of his mind.

With a gesture of his wand, Tom conjured a plank of wood to slide down the pipe with. Setting it on the lip of the opening, Tom settled on top of it and cast a temporary Sticking Charm for good measure. Maybe he should have asked Harry to come with him. It wasn't as though ghosts could die a second time, and Harry _was_ a Gryffindor.

There was nothing to be done for it now, however. Tom inhaled one more shaky breath and pushed himself forward.

The bottom of the pipe was disgusting. It should have been unsurprising—this place had not been touched in centuries. Tom stood up and vanished the plank. He would have to conjure a rope to climb back out later.

Everything was dark. The only light source was from the opening high above him, too far now to aid him much. Tom lit his wand and directed it around him. This area was a connector; there was another door just ahead. Tom moved towards it, the soles of his shoes sticking and unsticking from the damp, grimy floor.

This door was ornate and more befitting of a Hogwarts founder. Snakes curled in delicate patterns covered the stone entrance. Tom raised his wand and said for the second time, _"Open."_

With a low groan, the stone obeyed, shifting aside, making way for its true heir.

The chamber was larger than Tom had expected. Grand and cavernous, lit with an eerie glow that appeared to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Up ahead, there was a tall statue of a man. A man who Tom could only assume was his maternal ancestor, Salazar Slytherin.

_"Speak to me, Slytherin,"_ Tom said, willing his voice to hold steady, _"greatest of the Hogwarts Four."_

There was the sound of stone shifting once again, the drag of it that resounded against the chamber walls, filling Tom's ears with a distant ringing.

A dark shape was emerging before him. Tom recognized it not because he had recalled a passage from his textbook, but because he had _seen it before._ His eyes fell shut immediately. He took a step back.

Before him, the Basilisk hissed in greeting. _"The Heir of Slytherin calls to me,"_ it whispered. _"I answer their call."_

_"Close your eyes,"_ Tom said quickly. _"I command you."_

There was a pause. Tom felt a soft rush of air, heard the slow rub of scales as the large snake coiled and uncoiled.

_"You may gaze upon me, heir."_

Tom opened his eyes but kept them trained on the floor. He was not certain this was safe, but his instinct—his memory—was telling him to lift his head.

Carefully, Tom raised his eyes to the Basilisk.

Its eyes were shut as promised. Tom allowed himself to relax. _"Well done,"_ he praised calmly, a stark contrast to the rapid pulse of his still-frightened heart.

_"It has been many a century since I have laid eyes on an heir."_ The Basilisk settled on the stone floor, sliding a slow circle around where Tom stood in the center of the chamber.

_"Longer still since I have been permitted to leave the prison of this space. Longer than that, even, since I have feasted."_ Its tongue flickered out to taste the air, punctuating the statement in an ominous manner that sent a shudder skittering down Tom's spine.

_"You are under my command,"_ Tom insisted. _"I will care for your needs as required."_

The Basilisk wound another loop around him. _"Will you bade me to complete the task of your ancestor, heir?"_

The task of purging those who were unworthy of magic from the school. Tom had more pressing concerns at the moment. _"We will, with time,"_ he agreed cautiously.

_"I wish to see the surface. I hunger."_

Again, that tongue which flickered dangerously in the air. Tom was beginning to regret awakening this creature. Only he had done so already, had he not? He had done this before.

_"I will take you to the lake,"_ Tom said decisively. _"There are creatures there for you to feast on. You may travel through the pipes to arrive there."_ The Slytherin common room existed under the lake for a reason; it was all connected.

The Basilisk halted its sinuous movements. _"Very well,"_ it agreed. _"Then, heir, let us depart."_

* * *

When Tom emerged from the chamber sink, it was not to the near-silent sound of dripping faucets. Nor was it to the silence of an empty bathroom. Instead, it was to a cacophony of sight and sound and memory.

Opposite the opening of the sink were rows of stalls. From within one of these stalls came the watery sobs of a girl. Outside of the stall stood a crying girl wiping at her face. A few steps to his left, bent over one of the sinks and sniffling at her reflection, was that same girl.

The past laid over again and again, the blur of events that Tom had experienced but not recalled, the crying girl who appeared in this bathroom without fail each and every time.

Her name leapt into his mind, slid into place with a distant clarity. This was Myrtle Warren.

Tom was aware that he had been in this situation before. He was aware, vaguely, of the circumstances that had led Myrtle to this moment. Olive Hornby liked to pick on Myrtle, and this was likely the cause of Myrtle's untimely breakdown in the lavatory during the middle of a Hogwarts Quidditch match. He was aware that no matter what he tried to do, Myrtle Warren was about to die.

Not only was Myrtle Warren about to die—he, too, was about to die a tragic death at the fangs of the Basilisk. The memory of its deadly poison flooding his veins was too fresh, too agonizing to be easily forgotten (as he had forgotten so many, many times before).

The panoramic scene swam out of focus, flickering in the repetitive way that magical photographs had, like reality itself was bending around him. The giant Basilisk lurked behind his shoulder: impatient, unscrupulous, and hungry.

His legs and arms were frozen in place as the far stall door opened, as Myrtle lifted her eyes, as Myrtle turned away from her reflection to leave the bathroom. If he shouted, she would die. If he commanded the Basilisk to shut its eyes, she would die. If he blasted her aside with his own magic, she would still die.

The idea of Myrtle Warren's death did not sadden him. Her death only held power over him in that it would trigger another, more heinous event—an event that was rapidly returning to him, the inescapable truth of dozens of realities crashing down upon him with the force of a building.

Above him, the Basilisk rose, its head brushing against the ceiling. Myrtle would die upon seeing its gaze. Or Myrtle would die, impaled upon its fangs. Or Myrtle would die, slipping on the damp tile and cracking her head on the porcelain.

Tom stumbled away from the creature. He kept his arm outstretched, hoping that the Basilisk would not dare harm the heir of its master. Only he knew that was not true. It was _not true_ because he had already died here in this godforsaken lavatory on the second floor, poison in his system, blood shed upon the floor.

Myrtle began to scream and scream and scream. "Monster!" shrieked Myrtle, pitched and pitiful. "Murderer!" Her voice echoed violently, both in the bathroom and in Tom's head, a wailing emergency siren. 

Tom did not know if she was referring to him or the Basilisk or both. In the vague reflection of Myrtle's glasses, the form of the giant snake lowered, lunging forward, its head coming into view.

As the Basilisk rushed over him, Tom shut his eyes and dropped to his hands and knees, but that did not shield him from the sound of Myrtle's body as it hit the floor with a loud, wet smack. This, too, was not new to him. The memory was there, reachable, pulled effortlessly into reality despite his protests.

The noise did not end there; the great monster of Slytherin had yet to devour its prey. Tom crawled backwards, horrified. Although his eyes were shut, he could _hear it,_ and his tormented mind summoned the visual, forcing him to recall how the Basilisk snapped up the limp, broken body of the dead girl into its maw, swallowing her whole.

Tom wanted to tell the snake to stop, to stop, to STOP. Only he could not, because every protest met with the same end. Every action produced the same result. Tom was going to die.

The Basilisk swallowed. Tom could hear the steady drip of liquid against the tile.

Tom opened his eyes, kept them fixed on the floor. The Basilisk was going to leave the bathroom and seek out more Muggleborns to eat. And once all the Muggleborns were dead, it would continue its feast, justifying each and every death, turning Hogwarts into a slaughterhouse. Into a graveyard.

His past self had already come to this conclusion; the inescapable fact of the Basilisk's betrayal left him no other options. There was one chance for him to survive. There was a ritual that would grant him immortal life. This would save him, would keep his soul tethered to the earth long after his body succumbed to venom.

What was done could not be undone. This he had done, and this he would do again, because he could not be permitted to die here, a victim of his own folly, his own sense of self-importance.

Tom crawled forwards. His head was pounding, overwhelmed with each recurring version of his past, with each nightmare of his own demise.

Blood pooled on the ground, running along the grout between the tiles, staining it with red. The smell was sickening, the heavy scent of rust mixed with whatever other fluids had burst from the body before the Basilisk had devoured it. Tom held his breath and gripped his yew wand with a sweaty, trembling hand.

The ritual was complex, intricate, possibly beyond the capabilities of a sixth-year student, even one as powerful as he. But Tom held steady, for he had the confidence of one who had undertaken this task many times over, in more dangerous circumstances than this one.

Tom chanting Latin spells with a stab wound in his arm. Tom tracing bloody runes on the bathroom floor with a broken wrist. Tom slumped over a pile of shattered glass, lungs wheezing, desperately pressing a portion of his broken soul into the open pages of his diary.

They said murder ruined the soul, darkening it beyond repair, tearing that which had been most precious into scattered, irredeemable pieces. Murder was what enabled the creation of a Horcrux. Murder was what granted eternal life.

Tom had not killed Myrtle Warren today. He was not responsible for her death. But many gruesome, excruciating Saturdays ago, Tom had given Myrtle Warren to the Basilisk of his own free will, and for that he was now paying the price.

What was done could not be undone. Tom splayed his hand on the grimy floor drenched in Myrtle's blood. The weight of his past decisions haunted him. The past guided his hand, the past spoke with his voice. The past mocked him with impunity, and he could only hope that when this Saturday was done, he would remember it.

Tom gasped the final words, let his magic seize him, let the unrelenting pain grip every atom of his body, cleaving every aspect of it in two, mangling the core of who he was and twisting it beyond recognition. Separating parts of himself that would never recover.

Harry had tried to warn him, Tom thought hysterically. Harry had tried to stop him from coming here, from doing this. Harry had—

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up screaming, only nothing came out—there was no air in his lungs to expel, no energy to force into audible sound. Tom's entire body seized, throttled by the memory of his vey soul breaking apart.

"Tom? Tom?? _TOM!!"_

Tom could not speak, could neither croak a response nor purge the violent aftershocks from his body. He was burning again, each inch of skin flayed, every nerve scalded, his eyes watering, a shrill, distant screech scraping his eardrums raw.

Then, suddenly, there was relief. His entire body doused in freezing water, in arctic cold, in blissful numbness. The shock of it halted his mind, ceased his painful recollections, drew him back into the present. Into the Saturday morning that now existed as the only Saturday morning that would ever exist.

With great effort, Tom opened his eyes. It was a mark of his complete and utter exhaustion that he did not attempt to scream again, for merged into his body was the ghostly form of Harry Potter.

Harry was mouthing words at him. Tom shook his head and made an awful noise that might have been a moan. Harry withdrew, standing up, his transparent legs passing through the bed. Tom breathed deeply, never more grateful for the constant pull of oxygen available to him, and tried not to cry.

Then after some time, Harry spoke again, and this time Tom could hear with clarity.

"You're awake," Harry said. The double meaning of this was not lost on Tom. There was a brief pause in which Harry gazed upon him with concern before adding, "I heard you screaming so I came in. You've never—you don't usually do that.”

Tom continued to count his breaths one by one. The memory of yesterday lived on in his head, sharper than he would have liked. "You tried to warn me," Tom said slowly, evenly, once he felt confident enough to speak with coherence.

Harry blinked twice. "I did. You... remember? You remember that?"

"I remember yesterday," Tom admitted. "Most events before that remain unclear to me." Then the implications of Harry's statement caught up to him. "You remember," he said, awed. "How long have _you_ been remembering Saturday?"

Harry's gaze dropped to the bedsheets. "Long enough. We're the only ones, by the way. Who remember Saturday."

Harry must have been trying to stop him from going to the chamber for some time now to be able to make such a firm claim.

"I won't be going to the chamber today," Tom said with finality. "So the loop will break."

Harry cracked a shaky half-smile. "That's good."

Tom rose from his bed. Harry watched him cautiously. Tom glanced at where his wand rested on his bedside table, then decided he would wash and dress before he picked it up.

"We'll spend the day together," Tom added, trying to sound confident. "In case anything happens, you'll have to tell me later on." Later on being yet another repeat of Saturday. "If I attempt to do anything strange, you must do your best to talk me out of it."

"Okay. I can do that."

Tom got ready for the day. Harry hovered nearby, in the doorway of the bathroom, in the corner of the dorm next to the wardrobe. He did not speak, he merely observed as Tom went through the motions of a regular Saturday morning.

Once Tom was washed and dressed, he turned to look at his ghostly companion. Harry offered an awkward smile in response.

"Your wand, Tom?"

Tom grimaced and walked over to the side table. His wand holster was as comfortable as it had ever been, made to measurement so that it suited him perfectly.

"Let's go," Tom said, suddenly eager to depart. Perhaps the dread he felt would dissipate once they left the room.

Harry followed him out the door and down to the common room. Tom smiled blandly at his housemates and deflected their greetings with monotone excuses. Some questioning glances were thrown in Harry's direction—Harry was rarely seen during the day, and it was stranger yet to see him in the Slytherin common room of all places.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked as they stepped out and into the corridor.

Tom hadn’t thought quite that far ahead. His thoughts were too fragmented; it took him a second to gather them together. Where to go? Ideally, they would spend the day somewhere far away from the chamber. Somewhere far away from as many people as possible. They could walk the grounds, but Tom had left his cloak behind in the dorm.

"Tom?" Harry was wearing a concerned expression. Tom disliked it. Harry had witnessed him commit the same glaring errors over and over again. Harry had heard him screaming in pain, loud enough to wake the dead. Harry had led him on a wild chase all over the castle.

Then inspiration struck. "Where do _you_ go?" Tom asked. "When you want to be alone, where do you go?" _Where do you hide?_

Harry fiddled with the buttons of his robes, his lips twisting. "I can show you a place," Harry said slowly. "No one will bother us there."

Tom let Harry lead the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oofity oof oof oof oof! tom's finally gotten it into his dumb head that maybe poking around on ur own is NOT the smartest thing to do


	3. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Tom count down the hours until the end of the day, hoping that it will free them from the time loop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no tw for this part other than my empty brain, hasty writing lol

Harry led them to the seventh floor, to a stretch of corridor that was only somewhat familiar to Tom. As a Prefect, Tom made frequent rounds, and so it was expected that few areas of the school would be unknown to him.

Then they came upon a portrait of a wizard teaching trolls ballet. This was enough to trigger a memory—a _normal_ memory. The name of the location slid into place, a forgotten tidbit of information rising to the forefront of his mind.

"I've been here before," Tom said, eyeing the stretch of empty wall opposite the portrait. "The hidden room."

"Oh?" Harry shuffled over to where Tom knew the opening existed. "I can only go in when someone else is already inside." Then he added, as an afterthought, "Because ghosts can't summon the room."

Tom laid a hand on the bare stone. It hummed under his palm. Alive, like most of Hogwarts was. Full of magic. "Just a room full of rubbish," he commented idly. "But I suppose it will do."

"Rubbish?" Harry swiped at Tom's hand in an attempt to push it off of the wall. A wintery chill struck Tom as Harry's hand phased through his. "This is the Come and Go Room, Tom. It can be anything you want it to be."

"When I summon it," Tom said patiently, "it is a room full of rubbish."

"Yes," Harry said, in a faux-patient tone that matched Tom's, "but that is not the only function of this room. Close your eyes," he instructed, "and imagine the safest place you can."

Tom would have argued, would have protested the idea of knowledge he did not possess—but he had learned his lesson. He would not repeat his mistakes by not listening to Harry. Even if Harry's request sounded ridiculous, Tom's distant memories of fear and death were plenty of incentive for him to alter his behaviour.

So Tom closed his eyes. He let the peaceful darkness wash over his vision, let the feelings of warmth and family he had suppressed for years trickle in like rainwater to fill the hollow basin of his mind.

Then everything came rushing back—a sudden flood of painful memories.

Pestering the matron for the story of his mother. Receiving the only story of his mother he might ever have: how she had died for him, leaving him alone in this world.

Languishing at Wool's, disliked and unwanted. Too strange and distant to be considered normal. Too angry to be a proper, obedient child to any adoptive parents. Too freakish to have friends.

There was no such thing as a safe place. Any such place, Tom would have to construct from scratch. Tom had never given thought to a safe place before. Or if he ever had, that place had been forgotten—cast aside in the way that childhood dreams were meant to be discarded.

His lashes fluttered, his pensive mood replaced with irritation. There was no such place. There was no ideal home, no cheerful abode filled with warm colours and soft fabrics.

If Harry had not given him a vague direction to follow, he would have summoned images of grander rooms. Expensive decor and sleek lines of silver. Now even that was ruined, tainted with bitter thoughts of what could have been.

Then Harry began to speak. His voice was gentle; there was a dream-like quality to the way it drifted through the air, the volume of it loud enough to be audible yet quiet enough to allow space for other thoughts in Tom's head. So Tom opened his eyes and let Harry's voice wash over him.

"The safest place... it's a large room. It's not as big as the common rooms here at Hogwarts, but it's still a decent size. The carpets are maroon and the walls are a deeper shade of cream. There are pictures, too—" Harry's voice broke off, catching on some unknown emotion. "Pictures on the walls. And there is a big couch in the middle, big enough to fall asleep on. Lots of pillows and cushions to make it comfortable.

"There's a large fireplace with a wide opening, and there are some books on the mantelpiece, but most of them are on this tall bookshelf to the right. Books on other countries, books on baking, books on Quidditch."

Harry whirled around, and Tom noted his eyes were strangely alight. "And there are these lamps that float—the lights change colour depending on the hour and the season. Sometimes they're this brilliant blue, and other times they're a pale yellow."

Harry was clearly enamoured with what he was describing. This room was a romanticized ideal for a boy who, Tom was starting to suspect, also had not experienced the most spectacular home life.

Tom let his eyes fall shut once more. Harry was not able to call up the room, but the picture of it now existed in Tom's mind, lively and full of colour.

_I need the place where Harry goes to be alone._

Three times, Tom thought this, and three times, he passed by the expanse of stone that marked the opening for the Come and Go Room.

When the door appeared, it was mid-sized and oaken. Tom gripped the door handle—plain, polished brass—and pushed his way inside.

It was as Harry described: comfortable and well-lived in. They were surrounded by cream-coloured walls patterned with faint brown paisley, and the air was filled with the scent of the roaring fireplace and freshly-baked cookies.

This living room was _homely._ Tom could not quite decide if he hated it. This space was not what Tom would have chosen for himself, and he found that the dichotomy interested him. He compared his own idea of the perfect room to this room, a room built from the heart, and found his lavish ideal was somehow lacking.

Tom went directly for the couch and examined the fabric, the give of the cushions, and the warmth absorbed from the fireplace opposite it. Then Tom sat down and was promptly swallowed up by the cushions—the couch was so squashy that he fell right into the seat.

Harry snickered. "The face you made, Tom. You should see yourself."

Tom was offended. He straightened as best he could, his spine stiff and a neutral expression plastered to his face. "I suppose _you_ have no difficulty with falling through the cushions."

"Yes," Harry said dryly, "because I am a ghost. Well spotted, Tom." 

Tom chose to ignore that comment and resume his examination of the room. Even from the seventh floor, he could hear the distant noise of the Quidditch match in the background. Cheering was audible through the tall windows that were built into the far wall. At this angle, beams of sunlight filtered partially through Harry's feet and legs, rendering those parts of him transparent. It was a distracting sight.

Harry floated over to where Tom was seated. "Hufflepuff wins. Every time."

There was a pause as Tom reconnected himself to the conversation, drawing a line of thought from Harry's comment to the sounds coming from the castle grounds.

"Is that so?" Tom asked.

"Hufflepuff wins the match." Harry shrugged. "You told me to go watch the match, don't you remember? So I finally went and did it."

Tom did not remember Hufflepuff winning. What he recalled were the worst pieces of his past: the wretched trauma of dying, the crippling despair of fear.

The memories were not pleasant; already he had begun to suppress a great deal of them, utilizing the Occlumency techniques he had studied. They were not a perfect solution for this, but they were better than nothing. In this case, to do nothing was unbearable.

"I remember dying," Tom said roughly, "but it won't be happening again."

Harry hesitated, then drifted even closer. Tom felt his heart rate increase, embarrassingly loud in this space that was filled only by the crackling noises of the fire. But Harry did not pause, he drifted right through the back of the couch and towards the fireplace.

"It looks just as I left it," Harry murmured. "The same books. The same photographs."

The subject change was unexpected. Curious, Tom glanced over his shoulder at where Harry was standing. The books he could see were old titles of Muggle paperbacks. The photographs were fewer by comparison. One small frame caught Tom's eye—a portrait of a small infant Harry Potter and his parents.

"Your family," Tom said, standing so he could turn around and take a better look.

Harry nodded as he examined the offerings displayed on the mantelpiece. "I forgot how young they were when they had me."

Indeed, the faces of the Potters were youthful. They were not yet devoid of the softness associated with adolescence. Flaming hair for the mother, signature dark curls for the father. Tom began to compare, to make note of the similarities and the differences. Harry was his father in miniature save for his eyes, which were a shade of green that matched his mother's. Harry's cheekbones were also more prominent than his father's, his jaw longer and more defined. But the nose was the same, and the smile. Nevertheless, the mop of hair would always be a dead giveaway as to the relation.

"A lovely photo," Tom said politely. Then the meaning of the parents' ages snapped into place—if Harry's parents had been so young then, surely they were still alive now? There was no gentle way to pose such a question, but Tom was curious. Did they never come to visit their son? Was the knowledge of his death too much for them to handle?

Harry must have read the silent question off of his face, though, for he said, "They died when I was a baby."

Harry was an orphan, then. Like him. Tom shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, clasping his hands behind his back. Did one apologize for the loss of loved ones to a ghost? If Harry's parents were dead, why had he not gone on to join them?

"I am… deeply sorry to hear that."

"I never knew them. It's hard to miss them because of that. Sometimes, people would tell me about them. What good people they were. How much love they had for each other." Harry's brows lowered; his gaze dropped to the floor. "I guess I miss what could have been, if they had lived long enough to raise me."

It was a sentiment Tom was familiar with. Though it had been years since he'd nursed such thoughts, Tom had once dreamed of a life with his parents. His mother, who had been described to him by Wool's matron. His father, who he had been named after. But neither a Tom nor a Riddle had ever come for him, and so that dream had withered and been replaced with better, stronger dreams. Ambitions worthy of Salazar Slytherin's heir.

"It hardly matters, now," Harry mumbled, more to himself than to Tom.

Tom could not imagine himself in Harry's situation. No fond past to look back on, no grand future to look forward to. Only the misery of an eternal, meaningless existence. With nothing to say, he sat back down on the couch.

Harry sighed once in a grim manner, then settled cross-legged on the floor near Tom's feet. The entire lower half of his body was now practically invisible. Sunlight passed through him in streaks, through his left shoulder, through the right lens of his glasses. Harry's eyes shut slowly, eyelids falling over glossy eyes. He shivered, like the sunlight was hurting him, then went still.

The shiver was odd to see; ghosts did not get cold. So that meant this reaction was the result of emotion—emotion that, as far as Tom could recall, was not particularly common amongst ghosts. They could muster a semblance of cheerfulness from time to time, but they could rarely experience strong emotions such as this.

"How long," Tom asked, the consequence of the answer only now dawning on him, "have you been repeating Saturday?"

If Harry had relived this Saturday over a thousand times, the impact on his psyche would differ from the impact on a living human being. Ghosts were frozen in the period of development they had been in when they died. They could not grow, could not change; Harry would forever be a Hogwarts student no matter how many decades went by.

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does," Tom retorted. "Perhaps living the same day over and over is not much of a change for you, but it is for me."

Harry stood up and came closer. Closer, closer, until he was looming directly over Tom, the chill of his ghostly form emanating outwards in gentle waves. The set of his jaw jutted in a stubborn way that matched the stern line of his brows.

"The very first Saturday you died, you killed Myrtle Warren," Harry said, voice calm. "Every Saturday after _that,_ I tried to stop you. Every time, Tom, I try to stop you. From going to the chamber. From _dying._ But you never listen! You think you're invincible, but you're not," Harry seethed, and it was the first time Tom had ever heard the ghost sound _angry._ "Is this what you wanted to hear? That your stupid ego got you killed?"

_—the stall door opened with a painful creak. Myrtle laid eyes on Slytherin's monster and screamed in terror, her voice high and wailing._

_Tom felt satisfaction rise in him at the chance to at last prove his power, to exert his control over Slytherin's fabled monster, to seal his immortality forever._

_A life for a life; the cornerstone of Tom's research was that no dark magic came without cost—_

Tom blinked. The image in his mind dispelled. "Harry—"

Harry broke eye contact. His shoulders relaxed from their tense, hunched position. "There's no changing it now. Let us hope that your brilliant plan of doing nothing works." Then Harry flopped onto the other end of the loveseat and folded his arms over his chest.

Tom pressed his lips together hard enough for his teeth to bite into them. Harry had already seen him at his worst. What else was there to say? If this did not work… he was not sure what he would do.

A large grandfather clock on the wall chimed, announcing the hour. Tom glanced warily at it, noting the time. The rest of the day, he realized, would be torturous.

* * *

Some hours later, Tom's stomach growled. Harry looked over at him and raised a brow. With deliberate slowness, Tom reached for his bag, opened it up, and withdrew an orange from it. Then he began to peel it right atop the coffee table in front of them.

"An orange isn't going to tide you over until evening," Harry commented. "We should have thought this through better."

"I'll live."

Though Harry had said ‘we', Tom only heard ‘you'. It was an accusation; he had failed to consider all the necessities before leaving the common room. Nevermind that Tom most definitely had _not_ been thinking clearly when he'd left his dorm. He'd been overwhelmed by an urge to flee, to escape the places where his memories told him he had been so many, many times before.

The repetition of Saturday burned in his mind. Tom tried to push those images away, to purge them from his head, but it was difficult to do so with no other distractions. 

Across the room, Harry's eyes were drilling holes into the side of Tom's head.

"I have other food in my bag," Tom elaborated. "I won't starve, if that's what you're worried about."

"Well, good." Harry shifted in place, seemingly discomfited. "I used to do that, too. Keep extra food in my bag."

One never knew when the food would run out. Never hurt to have a little extra, just in case. Tom was a hoarder by nature—anything could be a trophy if it was looked at in the correct light. The little victories mattered just as much as the larger ones. Planning in advance had eased his way many times before, and it would only continue to do so in the future. When he resumed moving towards the future, that was.

Just to prove his point, Tom stuck his hand into his bag and pulled out a package wrapped in parchment. Inside lay two dinner rolls from yesterday's lunch. Tom tended to skip meals in the Great Hall when he was in the middle of a project. 

Whether that work took place in the library or the Slytherin common room didn't matter. What did matter was that he kept food on him at all times; it wouldn't do for his hunger to distract him from his goals. And if the act of having extra food at hand eased a small amount of anxiety inside of him, then that was merely an added benefit.

"People never really noticed," Harry continued, his voice drifting into melancholy, "but I suppose there never was anyone to notice in the first place."

Tom paused in the midst of peeling his orange. "Noticed that you took extra food?"

Harry bit down on his lower lip, looking as though he regretted speaking. "Noticed that I needed it."

Tom narrowed his eyes. Harry did not appear underweight. On the shorter side, yes, and skinny. But for a young boy, it was not so bad. Then again, most of Harry was hidden by the heavy Gryffindor robes he always wore. Old style Hogwarts robes that had fallen out of fashion decades ago.

"Don't have that problem anymore," Harry added with false cheer, picking at a loose thread on his trousers. "Can't taste much of anything."

Tom finished with his section of orange and took a bite; the tangy flavour flooded his mouth with sweetness. The orange served a dual purpose in quenching his thirst and satiating his hunger. If he grew hungry again later, he would eat the dinner rolls. After that, well, there was more food stored in his trunk in his dorm. He had never missed more than two meals at once before; therefore he never carried more than two or three items at a time on his person.

"Did you grow up without much to eat?" Tom asked conversationally. Perhaps Harry had been raised in an orphanage like him. Or else had been given to a poor family that could not afford regular meals.

"Something like that. And yourself?"

The question was stilted and awkward, but Tom forced himself to play along. "The orphanage receives generous donations," he parroted snidely. "They do well enough, though it's nothing compared to Hogwarts."

"Nothing compared to Hogwarts," Harry echoed.

The silence resumed, a deafening absence that rang in Tom's ears, bolstered only by the faint crackling of the fireplace. After some time, a sudden exhaustion overtook him; his muscles felt lax, his breathing slow and his mind weary.

Harry, alert as ever, scrutinized him. "Will you nap?"

"Napping is for children."

"You _are_ a child," Harry pointed out.

Tom kept his face impassive. "I'm fine." Sleep would not help him; it would only hail the scenes of terror he wished to suppress. He was safer staying awake. He was safer if he remained conscious and aware of his situation.

Off to the side, the fire blazed on. Tom released a sigh and slid back against the cushions of the loveseat.

* * *

By dinner time, Tom had already polished off the two dinner rolls he'd brought with him. They'd been dry without butter, even after he'd reheated them to soften the insides. He could return to his dorm for food, but then he would be bombarded with questions regarding his absence. It was more sensible to keep himself hidden away.

Harry had grown bored of sitting still. For the past hour, he had poked around, exploring the room. Tom was subjected to commentary on the pattern of the wallpaper and musings on the colour choices for the upholstery. 

Tom had crossed one leg over the other and lounged back in his seat. His right foot tapped out a slow rhythm on the floor as he attempted at an air of nonchalance. He would have liked to make productive use of this time, but he was too occupied with his current predicament to focus on anything else.

"Have you ever been in a room like this?" asked Harry.

"No." This room was a figment of his imagination.

"Where I lived—it was plain. Boring. There was none of this colour around." Harry's face scrunched up, then relaxed as his eyes scanned the blazing fireplace. "This room always reminds me of the Gryffindor common room, only kinder." 

"How so?" It seemed unlikely; Gryffindors were known for their rowdy parties and good-natured camaraderie.

"It was overwhelming at times," Harry said. "The loudness of it. You asked me where I went when I wanted to be alone—I picked this room for that reason. It's peaceful here. You can go wherever you like, wherever you want to imagine yourself to be. I think—I think it's what I miss the most about being alive. Having a safe place just for myself."

Harry averted his gaze for a second, turning to the windows. There was less sunlight at this hour. Harry appeared more solid than he had when they'd first entered this room together. Tom did not respond, and so Harry fell silent at last, leaving Tom once more to his own thoughts.

The similarities between his past and Harry's were interesting. The lack of food and boring living space were what Tom associated with Wool's—and he hated living at Wool's. Wherever Harry had lived following his parents' untimely demise, he must have hated it just as much.

Slowly, the hours dragged on. Tom got up to pace a few times, citing a desire to prevent his limbs from falling asleep. Harry floated around, quiet now that night had fallen.

After one final walkabout of the room, Tom resettled onto the loveseat and shut his eyes, brushing his left hand over the velvet fabric of the armrest. Behind his closed eyelids lay flashes of the past. 

"If this doesn't work," Harry said from across the room, "what will we do?"

Tom kept his eyes closed. He did not want to think about what would happen if it did not work. "There is no reason to think it won't. Only the Chamber could have magic powerful enough to cause such an event."

"But what if?" Harry insisted, in a tone that grated on Tom's nerves.

"If it doesn't, then I will find some other solution." Tom kept his voice cold to dissuade any further annoying responses, but he should have known better than to do that—he should have known better than to act disagreeable around the boy who was trying to help him.

When midnight arrived, Tom did not last through the chiming of the clock. Before the seventh chime, his vision faded to black, numbness seizing his limbs and hurtling his mind into unconsciousness.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up to Harry looming over his bed.

"What do you remember?" Harry asked, sounding curious. His arms unfolded from their stiff position across his chest; he floated closer, right up to Tom's face.

Tom was overwhelmed. Everything he had done cycled through his head, one memory at a time, the days winding back like clockwork. Everything Tom had tried on his own, everything he had done so many, many times before. Tom remembered Myrtle Warren's death again and again and again—the horrific sight of gore, the wretched smell of devoured flesh, the wet slump of her body on the floor.

Tom remembered too much.

"I have to save Myrtle," Tom croaked out. "That's what I need to do to fix this."

Harry's mouth opened, then closed. Then it opened again, and Harry said, his brows scrunched up in confusion, "Save her from what?"

"Save her from—" Tom broke off and sat up. "Save her from—"

"Tom, _you_ unleash the Basilisk," Harry said dubiously. "And in case you don't remember, yesterday you very much did _not_ do that."

"Then I need to save her from something else! From Olive Hornby!" Frustrated, Tom swung his legs over the side of the bed and got to his feet. "I'm very sure that this is what is causing the loop. Because Myrtle died—"

"Because you killed her!"

Tom froze. The world swirled around him, hazy like a dream. Harry’s ghostly form blinked in and out of sight, the Slytherin dorm room was suddenly replaced by a darker, more sinister chamber.

_—the cornerstone of Tom's research was that no dark magic came without cost, and so for him to achieve an immortal existence, Myrtle had to die._

_This was a cost he had come to accept. This was a cost he would accept, and his opportunity to do so had at last arrived. Though he had never taken a human life before, he was certain that this decision would be what launched him from mortal to a god—_

"She won't die." Tom worked the words out despite the infernal buzzing in his head, despite the endless noise of death after death after death. "I'll save her, I will." He had to. He could not remain like this, repeating the same day over, going insane as he was buried alive under an avalanche of memories.

Harry stared at him. For a long time, Tom's dizzy, laboured breathing was the only sound in the room.

"Okay," Harry said. He was grimacing, like he had swallowed something particularly bitter but had yet to spit it out. "Then I'll help you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna try and finish this in one more part, AND i am gonna try and finish this before 2020 is over. it'll be a goddamn miracle if i do.


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saving Myrtle from her horrendous fate fails to produce any results. With no other options, Tom is forced to relate his secret to Harry: the creation of his Horcrux.

What followed was a truly excruciating week. Quite possibly the most excruciating week of Tom’s life; a week that consisted purely of Saturdays. Tom had believed, naively, that spending the day stuck with Harry in the Come and Go Room was torturous. 

What he had forgotten was that Harry was one of the few people whose presence he actually tolerated. Spending time with Myrtle Warren was the equivalent of prying his fingernails off, one at a time, with a rusty spoon.

Everything Myrtle said was idiotic or pointless. The true difficulty was deciding what annoyed him more: her voice or her personality. There was her constant whining about Olive Hornby. There were her uncomfortable advances on him _and_ Harry. There was her pitched, nasally laughter at things that were not funny. The more Tom had to put up with her, the more sense it made why he had killed her to begin with.

But since his new goal was to save her, Tom steeled himself and forged on.

He and Harry spent the day with Myrtle, making sure no one bothered her. Myrtle talked Tom's ear off, telling him how jealous Olive would be that he had taken an interest in her. It was difficult to remember that their goal was to keep her _alive,_ but Tom managed to make it through the day without committing murder.

Saturday morning, Tom woke up.

He and Harry watched from _afar,_ using magic to make sure no one bothered her. Myrtle went about her day in blissful ignorance. Tom disparaged her character with a running commentary while Harry shot him disapproving looks.

Saturday morning, Tom woke up.

He and Harry were Myrtle Warren’s bloody guardian angels, not that Tom felt she deserved it. Myrtle was the most annoying student in their grade. Hardly a travesty that she had died the first time; who would even miss her? Tom put forth every effort into making her day as perfect as possible, watched as she beamed and skipped and giggle-snorted wherever she went.

Still, Saturday lived on.

Tom doubled his efforts: Olive Hornby became the unfortunate victim of multiple Confundus Charms; Olive Hornby was sent to the Hospital Wing because her hair would not stop growing; Olive Hornby, despite Harry’s protests, was locked in an unused classroom and left there all day.

Even after trying all of _that,_ the day continued to loop.

Saturday lived on, and as it did, Tom recalled more and more of the past, flashes of the various Saturdays laid overtop of each other. It was growing difficult for him to tell the memories apart—everything was blending together.

Harry did not comment on Tom’s failures. Harry _did_ ask, repeatedly and with increasing bluntness, what had happened the first time Tom had killed Myrtle. Tom did not answer; he talked around the topic, he changed the subject, he gave a non-answer. Harry let this happen, though Tom suspected a reckoning would come sooner rather than later, especially as their attempts to free themselves continued to produce no results.

Several Saturdays later, Tom abandoned subtlety. He stunned Myrtle in the middle of a corridor, then he levitated her body to the Come and Go Room while Harry followed him.

“I don’t see why this will work,” Harry commented quietly. “I don’t think it matters where she is or if she’s conscious or not.”

Tom did not answer. He would find a way to make this work, to fix the loop. He would force time itself to bend to his whims.

_—nothing would stop him from achieving greatness. He was Heir of Slytherin, and he would live forever—_

They reached the room. Tom closed his eyes and summoned the door, this time picturing the Slytherin Common Room. When the door appeared, Tom wrenched it open and floated Myrtle’s unconscious, invisible body through the opening.

“I think we need to try something else,” Harry said.

Tom set Myrtle down on one of the couches. He had doused her with a Sleeping Draught after stunning her. She would need to take a new dosage every three hours or so, but one day of heavy potion consumption wouldn’t do her much harm.

“Like what?” Tom asked. He was tired. The repetition was getting to him. He felt as if he hadn’t slept properly in months—and maybe that was true. Maybe he had been stuck in this loop for months, constantly plagued by nightmares of dying, unable to sleep.

“Myrtle isn’t the problem. We’ve kept her safe for days, but the loop continues to reset us.”

“Perhaps we need to visit the library,” Tom said. He was pleading to the universe for answers, grasping at straws, but what else could he do? “There may be magical aspects to the Basilisk that we are unaware of—”

Harry blew out a frustrated sigh. Tom knew what he was thinking, that Myrtle was not the problem, that it was _Tom_ who was the problem.

“—or some other information on the Chamber I may have missed,” Tom finished crossly.

Harry shook his head but did not argue further. They sat through the day in tense, on-and-off silence. Myrtle lay sleeping on the couch, her presence a far better conversation deterrent than Tom could have anticipated.

When the hour approached midnight, Tom shifted in place on the armchair. He was hungry because he had not eaten all day, but it did not matter to him. It did not make a difference. If he woke up tomorrow and it was Sunday, then he would eat. If he woke up tomorrow and it was Saturday, his hunger would be gone.

When there were two minutes left to go, Harry spoke. “If this doesn’t work,” Harry said, “then will you listen to me?”

Tom did not want to. Harry had been aware of their time loop for longer than Tom had, but there were things that Harry did not know about him. The creation of his Horcrux, for one. The Horcrux whose existence that Tom was reluctant to admit, even after all that had happened. He could recall the feeling of triumph that had coursed through his veins, the joy of it distant now that so much time had elapsed.

If this new plan did not work, Tom would have to confess his crime. To be trapped in this loop forever was not a fate that he could stomach. Already the strain of it on his body and his mind was taking its toll. No human was meant to experience life like this. The forced reset was messing with his senses, with his perception of the world around him.

“Fine,” Tom said. He would listen, as he had once promised. Whether he took Harry’s advice or not was another matter.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up.

Harry was seated on the bed opposite, arms folded over his chest.

With reluctance, Tom sat up. Though he no longer woke screaming and in pain, his limbs had a strange, numb weight to them. It took a few minutes for feeling to return to his extremities. If this continued, would he one day not wake up at all? Would he be trapped in a body that failed to respond to him, lost in the memories of Saturdays gone by?

“Will you tell me now,” Harry asked without preamble, “what you were doing that first Saturday? When you killed Myrtle?”

They had not spoken about her death in detail before. At the beginning, Harry had not asked, and Tom had not volunteered the information. So Tom paused, thinking over how to best phrase his response.

Harry’s eyes narrowed at Tom’s silence. “Well?” Harry demanded.

His tone grated on Tom's nerves. Harry did not understand what he was going through. Harry did not have a body that suffered through each repetition of the day.

“Myrtle was _convenient._ Is that what you wished to hear?” Tom spat. “That I killed her, not because I found her particularly abhorrent or annoying, but because she was _there.”_ And now the universe was punishing him for it. “I have realized my mistake and I have tried to make up for it. And as you have so generously pointed out to me, it makes no difference whether she dies or not. We are trapped here regardless.”

Harry stood up, his ghostly form shimmering in the morning light of the dorm room. “I know you were up to something. Chanting in Latin, drawing runes. Dark magic has a cost. That’s why it is dark—not because it is _evil,_ but because of its potential for terrible destruction.” 

Tom held steady, did not let his unease show on his face. “And how do you know so much about Dark magic?” he accused.

“I know enough to recognize it when I see it,” Harry retorted. “Did you know that ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts’ was once simply called ‘Defense’? Time has changed the class’s curriculum as much as it has changed the title. We covered plenty of ‘Dark’ magic during my time at Hogwarts. I know it when I see it. All that time you spend in the library, your pass for the Restricted Section… did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Tom _had_ thought that, mostly because everyone else did not notice. Everyone else saw Tom Riddle, model student. They saw Tom Riddle, a charming Slytherin destined for greatness. They did not see the ambitions that lurked beneath, the ambitions that were more sinister than simple political aspirations.

“Do you want to live Saturday forever?” Harry pressed. “Because I don’t, Tom, and I’m _dead.”_

Tom winced. The remnants of his pride and self-control were barely enough to hold him together. He was, truthfully, terrified of living this day over and over. It troubled him that his memory was deteriorating, that his mind might wither away until he went insane. It scared him that some day he might not wake up at all, that he would be frozen in time until magic itself died.

Harry wanted to know what Tom had done. There was no choice now but to tell him.

“Do you know of Horcruxes?” Tom asked, defeated.

Harry did not know anything, and so Tom explained it to him. His persuasive explanation did nothing to dispel the grim look on Harry’s face, a look that was rapidly overtaken by disapproval. 

“Then that’s it, isn’t it? Your meddling with Dark magic is what has trapped us here.”

“I hardly think—”

Harry scoffed. “You wanted to live forever? Now you can. The perfect punishment.”

Tom’s jaw snapped shut. It was a clever punishment, though he would not admit that aloud. A cursed existence, but an eternal one. His ambition had been realized, but the cost was unimaginably high—too high.

Tom took a deep breath, forced himself to calm down, forced his sluggish brain to _think._

“I have not made a Horcrux for the past several Saturdays. You’ve been with me throughout all of this; you know I am telling the truth. So the Horcrux is not what is causing the loop.”

Harry scowled. “Let me see it. The Horcrux.”

Reluctantly, Tom retrieved his diary from the pocket of his Hogwarts robes. It looked the same as ever—in excellent condition, the pages within decorated with neat rows of his handwriting. “I haven’t cast any magic on it.” Tom picked his wand up from the side table, shaking the unease that trailed the action, and said, _“Specialis revelio!”_ His wand tip met the cover of his diary, but nothing happened.

“See?” Tom said. “There isn’t any magic on it.”

“There isn’t any magic on either of us, yet we continue to loop,” Harry pointed out. “Maybe splitting your soul has done more damage than you thought. Tell me what you remember about making it.”

Tom did not remember exactly what he had done, but the more he thought on it, the more he thought that… maybe he did remember. He nodded, injecting confidence into the motion. “Give me a moment,” he said roughly. “I have to sort through my memories to discern which instance was the initial one.”

Harry went quiet and sat back down on the bed opposite.

Tom closed his eyes and thought back. Immediately, he was assaulted with a swarm of events, colours and faces overlaid like a disturbingly-realistic kaleidoscope.

_—Tom stared down at the shorter boy before him, the ghost whose company he sometimes sought in the library. He had more important things to be doing than to stand around with a ghost. Tom flashed an empty smile and hurried past, intent on leaving Harry behind. He had a chamber to visit, an heritage to claim._

_"I—I'm in love with you!" Harry blurted out._

_Tom whirled around. "You what?" he asked, completely befuddled._

_"I am—I'm in love with you, Tom," Harry finished lamely, dropping his eyes to his shoes._

_Tom was completely thrown from his previous train of thought. He gaped at Harry, aware that he probably looked like an idiot while he did so. Had Harry been in love with him this entire time?_

_"Since when?" Tom finally demanded—_

This was not the memory he was looking for. Was this another one of Harry’s attempts to shock him into avoiding the Chamber? The admission of affection made Tom uncomfortable; the strangeness of the scenario, combined with his own imperfect ability to recall the memory, was concerning. Tom shoved the scene aside and moved on.

_—but the Basilisk was waiting in the pipes, and so Tom could not dither for long, not while Myrtle’s body lay upon the floor, her blood draining away._

_Tom lifted his wand, power and magic and might flowing through his veins. He would separate his soul and direction a portion of it into his diary. He would conquer Death. He would live forever._

_“Tom? What have you done?”_

_That voice was familiar. Tom spun around to see Harry Potter standing nearby, ghostly face contorted in shock._

_“Nothing that concerns you,” Tom said smoothly._

_Harry made a noise of despair. He was looking down at Myrtle’s body. “What did you do?” Harry repeated in horror. “Did you kill her?”_

_These questions were wasting his time. Tom ignored Harry and resumed completing the steps of the Horcrux ritual._

_“Stop that,” Harry snapped. “Stop whatever you’re doing, or I’ll tell the Headmaster.”_

_“I’m not doing anything. I found her like this.” The word of a ghost would hardly hold weight compared to his own—he would figure out some way to silence Harry afterwards._

_“I saw you,” Harry accused. “I saw you talking to that large snake.”_

_Tom froze. This wouldn’t do. He rose slowly, leaving the runes half-drawn on the bathroom floor—_

This memory was closer to what he wanted, but it was still not the right one. Tom swallowed. Remembering Myrtle’s mangled body made him feel ill. He had never shied away from blood before, but perhaps the sensation of fear he associated with her death was provoking feelings of unease in him.

Still, he could not stop now. Tom took a deep breath and resumed his search. Somewhere in his mind was the memory he needed.

_—Tom traced the final rune upon the floor, then sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork. Beautiful. Each rune in its place, each line drawn with precision. His fingers stained red with Myrtle’s blood. All that was left was to summon his magic and cast the spell._

_His diary rested on the countertop a few paces away. Tom retrieved it and set it down upon its place of honour on the floor. Soon it would house a precious part of him; a portion of his soul._

_Tom raised his wand, conjured in his mind’s eye the spell motion he needed to trace in the air. It was a complex spell, certainly, but it was not impossible for someone of his caliber. Mind over matter, that was all. His hand twisted, carving patterns into the air._

_A curve, a circle, a line—each stroke of his wand moved perfectly into place. Tom could feel his power gathering around him, a rising cloud of splendour. Then he gasped the first part of the incantation, let his magic flood through him, gathering his soul into its hands and tearing it in two._

_Separating parts of himself that would never recover._

_The scrap of his soul tore itself free. Tom was delirious with pain, barely conscious, but he still had to direct his soul piece to its resting place, to the object that would keep it safe. His wand twirled, prepared to form a channel for his soul to travel. The second half of the incantation was spoken in a hoarse voice that rang oddly in his head._

_A blurry form leapt into his field of vision. Silver and blue and shaped like—_

Ragged tendrils of memory fluttered in the cavern of his mind, but they were not solid enough for him to grasp at. He had reached the end of the memory. Tom shook himself of his disorientation, steadied his quivering hands, and braced his shoulder against the bedpost to hold himself upright.

Tense minutes went by in which no one said anything.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked.

“You were there,” Tom accused. The silver and blue glow had to have been Harry. “You were there, that first time. Don’t _you_ remember?”

“I was there for the end,” Harry said hesitantly. “A bit of it, anyway. I don’t remember it very clearly, which is why I asked. My being there is not the same as knowing exactly what you did or why you did it.”

“I did the ritual. Everything went according to plan. You appeared at the end, and then I am unsure what happened next.”

“I…” Harry trailed off. “I don’t remember any of that. I remember watching Myrtle die, and then nothing.”

Tom frowned. They both sat there, thinking in silence. Both he and Harry had been there when Myrtle had died, but _Myrtle_ did not remember anything. He and Harry were the only two people repeating the day over and over. Why was that?

“Perhaps the key to this loop is remembering what happened that day,” Tom allowed. “I’ll brew a memory potion.” He popped open his trunk and retrieved his cauldron. “It won’t take long, and it should allow me to unlock the rest of the memory.” 

The recipe for this potion was one Tom knew by heart. Before exam season, he would brew a large batch and distribute it amongst his fellow associates, typically saving one dose for himself. It had been an excellent way to earn loyalty; now it was his hope at saving himself from a fate worse than death.

* * *

Brewing the potion took over two hours. Tom took care to measure and prepare each ingredient. His mind was no longer functioning at full capacity, and a mistake with this potion could prove fatal. The end result was a murky golden concoction that smelled like pumpkin juice but tasted like fish. Tom swallowed it down with a grimace.

“Should you be taking that on an empty stomach?” Harry asked curiously.

“It’s fine.” Tom counted the seconds between his breaths, spacing them out, then let his eyes fall shut. He did not feel like he had poisoned himself. Gently, then, he probed his mind for the memory.

_A blurry form leapt into his field of vision. Silver and blue and shaped like a human person. If not for the intense pain raging through his body, Tom would have noticed that the blurry shape was Harry._

_The piece of his soul flew forward, heedless of the obstruction, and struck Harry right in the center of his forehead._

_Harry gasped as the impact knocked him backwards—_

Tom blinked back to the present. Slowly, his eyes refocused on the boy seated across from him. He had never wondered why Harry was trapped in this endless loop with him. He should have wondered why. He should have thought about it for longer than five minutes, he should have realized that Harry was more than just a sidekick tagging along on this adventure from hell.

“It hit you,” Tom said, mystified. 

He had read about living Horcruxes. The creation of one was ill-advised; a sentient Horcrux had free will and could die much more easily than an inanimate one could. Yet Tom had created one, not even a living one but a _sentient_ one. He had done this completely by mistake, and in doing so he had trapped Harry in this loop with him.

“What are you talking about? What hit me?”

“My soul,” Tom said blankly. “My Horcrux: it’s you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more part? lmao? i have more plot i need to get through still -sobs-


	5. Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time loop's creation is linked to Tom's Horcrux creation, but how?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rewrote this chapter maybe three times and i'm still not happy with it so,,, it is what it is :(

Knowing that Harry was his Horcrux did not solve the mystery of the time loop, it only explained why Harry was repeating the day with him. 

Tom’s solution of visiting the library had been proposed with the intention of researching the Chamber and its Basilisk, but now he was beginning to doubt himself. Whatever had gone wrong here, it had to do with the two of them, which meant in all likelihood it was tied neither to the Chamber nor the monster that lived in it.

Still, it seemed foolish to leave any stone unturned. He and Harry went to the library and spent their days reading. Harry would make a noise, and Tom would use wandless magic to turn the page for him. The two of them stayed through lunch, through dinner. They stayed until the day ended, working without pause. Tom was more than used to feeling hungry, and he knew his hunger would go away when the day began anew.

After referencing books on magical creatures that mentioned Basilisks, they moved onto books that documented the history of Hogwarts. In those, there were no overt references to Salazar Slytherin’s legacy. This was not surprising; Tom had gone through many of these books before, searching for clues regarding the Chamber’s location. 

“There is _nothing_ here,” Tom said, frustrated. There was nothing to suggest that opening the Chamber would cause a time loop. He shoved the book he was reading aside. “This is a waste of time. We will not find answers here.”

Tom had put up a number of privacy wards around them, and it was because of this that he was willing to speak candidly. If anyone did overhear them, they would forget whatever it was come midnight.

“Then what else should we be doing?” Harry asked. He sounded just as exhausted as Tom did, which was truly a testament to how dire their situation was. 

Harry was a ghost. Ghosts did not tire so easily. But Tom supposed that, to Harry, the drain of repeating the day was endless. If he fatigued, it would carry over. Harry did not receive a fresh body every Saturday morning because he was trapped in the same, lifeless existence. 

“Lifeless,” Tom said aloud, glancing over at his companion. “Ghosts are not alive.”

“Well spotted,” Harry said dryly.

“Horcruxes are meant to be living creatures or static objects,” Tom said, his voice rising in excitement. “You are neither alive nor an object. A Horcrux is dependent on its vessel for survival, but you cannot die. You can never die. Are there ways for ghosts to be destroyed?”

“Destroyed?” Harry stared at him. “No, not that I know of.”

The picture was becoming clear to him. In his reckless quest for power, Tom had unlocked _true_ immorality. He had created a Horcrux that, potentially, could never be destroyed.

“You are an immortal, indestructible Horcrux,” Tom said in awe.

Harry pressed his lips together. He stared for a moment, then said, “While I exist, you can never die. Isn’t that the point of a Horcrux?”

“Yes,” Tom admitted, “but I wonder if the extreme I have taken it to has defied some unknown law of magic. It would explain the loop, if so.”

“It is illegal to defile ghosts according to the ancient laws of magic,” Harry deadpanned. “Wonderful. What will we do now? I don’t suppose you know how to _undo_ the Horcrux ritual?” 

“I don’t know of any way to reverse the process,” Tom said, wincing. He was long past the point where he would lie to hide his ignorance. There was nothing to be gained from keeping information from Harry.

“Fantastic.” Harry huffed and slumped backwards, passing right through the chair he’d been floating on and nearly phasing into the bookcase behind him. “So you’re saying I will have a piece of you inside of me forever, in _addition_ to being forced to repeat Saturday forever.”

“You say that like I planned for this to happen,” Tom snapped.

“Well, you certainly didn’t go out of your way to prevent it!”

Tom could not quite argue against that, so he switched tracks. “This argument is useless. What’s done is done—”

“What’s done is done? Then we should be looking for a real solution instead of all this.” Harry gestured to the stack of the books on the table and threw Tom a flat look. “Brew another memory potion, maybe. Write out what we can about every Saturday we’ve been through thus far.”

That idea did have merit. They were not making any progress here, and now that Tom had identified what he believed to be the cause of the loop, they would require more clues to solve it.

“Wait,” Harry said suddenly. “You think that we’re looping together because I’m your Horcux, correct?”

“Yes,” Tom said tersely.

“But I’m not _always_ your Horcrux. I don’t remember the first time you made me into one, but I’m fairly sure it hasn’t happened since then. If I’m not a Horcrux now, then why do I still loop?”

“You must be,” Tom said, frustrated. “You must be one. Or else none of this makes any sense!”

“Is there a spell to test it?” Harry asked, incredulous. “Do you know _anything_ about this idiotic immortality ritual you did?”

“I know plenty.” Tom cast his gaze around the library. It was mostly empty because everyone was at the thrice-damned Quidditch match. “Let’s take this discussion to the Come and Go Room. We can run the tests there.”

“Fine.” Harry gestured sharply towards the entrance. “After you.”

They left the library. Once they reached the fifth-floor corridor, Tom summoned the first room they had used, the safe place that Harry had described to him. As they entered the room, Harry did not look at the photographs on the mantelpiece as he usually did; instead he waited, impatiently, for Tom to check him over.

Casting spells on Harry did not reveal any new information. Harry was his Horcrux, as Tom had suspected. This fact also confirmed Tom’s new hypothesis, which was that ghosts were not meant to be made into Horcruxes.

“Then should we be researching Horcruxes?” Harry asked.

Tom collapsed onto the too-comfortable couch that was, apparently, a crucial part of Harry’s ‘safe’ room. “If there is more information to be had, it does not exist within these walls. I’ve read through every book in the Restricted Section that references Horcruxes and their method of creation.”

“A day is plenty of time to source more books,” Harry argued. “We could place an owl order, or you could sneak down to Hogsmeade.”

Tom scowled. “Do you think these sorts of books are so easily accessed? Don’t be absurd. I’ll make some discreet inquiries with my housemates and see what they have to offer.”

Harry said nothing at first. His eyes were misty, distant. Then he refocused and floated over to the couch where Tom was seated. “So what do we do for the rest of the day, then? Nothing?”

“What does half a day matter?” Tom muttered irritably, half to Harry, half to himself. “We’ve been reading in the library for an eon. I think we can afford to take some time to rest.”

Harry’s brows shot up his forehead. “Resting? Who are you and what have you done to Tom Riddle?”

“Very amusing.” Tom closed his eyes and slumped backwards. He had originally disliked this couch, but now he found that being surrounded by squashy cushions and soft fabric was almost comforting. If he could convince Harry to leave, he might take a nap. Tom cracked his eyelids open so he could look at his ghostly companion. “You’re free to wander around if you like. You don’t have to stay here.”

Harry’s expression did something funny, twisting in a way that Tom had not seen before. “No,” Harry said. “I think I’ll stay.”

Tom was not quite sick of having Harry around, but he was sick of having to deal with the same day—a day that included Harry—over and over. Harry had not complained (too much) about how this situation was Tom’s fault. Which it was, no matter how loath Tom was to admit it. Harry had jumped in front of his spell, but it was Tom’s Horcrux that had caused the time loop.

“I might rest my eyes, then,” Tom said.

“You mean take a nap?”

Tom shuffled into a more comfortable position on the couch and shut his eyes again. He heard Harry snort, but soon the sound faded away as Tom sank into a relatively peaceful slumber. When he woke, Harry would still be there, and that thought brought him a strange amount of comfort.

* * *

Research progressed slowly, painfully. No matter how many books Tom was able to purchase, steal, or wheedle out of his classmates, he never had enough time to read them all before the day was over. Some days, it took hours for the books he needed to arrive in his hands. It was more brutal than studying for year-end exams, but what else was there to do? What path was left to take?

So Tom woke every morning and forced himself to work. Harry was an ever-present comfort by his side, able to look over the books that Tom suspected of being too dangerous for him to stare directly at.

Tom had never shied away from knowledge. He found the very idea of suppressing or ignoring it abhorrent. Whatever knowledge there was, so long as it was useful, he would consume it. This was his mantra, this was what he applied to all of his studies, public or private. There was no space for taboo in his personal worldview—all magic, dark or otherwise, was welcome. Power was always welcome.

Now, though, the act of learning drained on him. Dozens of books swam through his mind like sickly plagues, their contents heavy like molasses as they dragged on his consciousness, on his memories.

Tom woke every morning to a fresh face. There were never any dark circles hanging under his eyes, but they were there in spirit, and perhaps that was somehow worse than if they had been visible to begin with.

Harry was always there, waiting for him, typically one of the first things Tom saw in the morning. At Tom’s request, they had begun a habit of starting the day before dawn whenever it was reasonable to do so, but now Tom was beginning to regret that decision. Harry must have noticed his exhaustion, too—after a while, the early morning calls slowed, then stopped altogether. Tom would wake at a regular hour and greet Harry with all the enthusiasm of a man being sent to the gallows.

It was not sustainable. Soon, one of them would crack. With little recourse left, Tom continued his research. Harry kept watch, his disapproving stare fixed in place. Tom did not want or need a minder, but Harry was insistent.

“Take a break, Tom.”

Tom finished the paragraph he was reading, moved onto the next, then flipped the page.

“Tom?”

Tom started a new paragraph. He placed the tip of his finger to the page so he could track his progress.

Harry’s hand phased through the book Tom was holding. “Tom.” He waved his hand through Tom’s palm. “Tom. All this reading will not help us. We haven’t found a way to reverse the process, and with the time constraint we have, I don’t think we ever will. At least, not before—”

Not before the loop ruined them for good.

* * *

“You never wake screaming anymore.”

“And what of it?” Tom rubbed tiredly at his eyes as he sat up. Mechanically, he shoved his feet into his slippers and started going through the motions: brush teeth, wash face, put on clothes.

Harry followed him into the bathroom. “It happened once. That was when you started to remember. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Tom snapped. “Why does anything happen in this fucking place?” He splashed some cold water onto his face; the shock of it did little to lighten his mood.

“There must be a reason.” Harry frowned.

“I was in a lot of pain,” Tom said, droll. He eyed Harry’s ghostly form reflected in the bathroom mirror. “Does that answer your question?”

“Was that the only time you woke up in pain?”

“I—no. It was not.” Tom turned the tap off, using more force than necessary.

“So it may be related. What do you remember?”

That was a dangerous question, these days. Tom stiffened, felt the discomfort and tension crawl up his spine like a clawed beast. Then he gave the problem some thought. The problem, not Harry’s question, because there had to be a logical explanation that did not require him to frolic through his fractured mind like a blind man through a minefield.

“It must be because of the Horcrux,” Tom hypothesized. “The act of making one causes intense pain, and so that sensation transfers into the next day.”

“If that is true, then what does that mean for us?”

“It means that my theory is correct,” Tom said tiredly. “Your existence as my Horcrux is causing the loop, and its effects carry over into the following day.”

“Then we must be supposed to undo it!” Harry made an angry gesture in Tom’s direction. “You have to get your soul _out_ of me. If it’s what caused the time loop, then it must be the key to undoing it.”

“Do you think I’m unaware of that?” Tom snapped. “We’ve read through the same books. There is nothing. We’ll waste away here, _forever,_ until I go mad and you’re left with no one else who will tolerate your asinine presence.”

“You think you’ve been successful up until now because you’re brilliant,” Harry said quietly, “but it’s also because you’re afraid.”

Tom went still. There was no reason for his blood to run cold, but Harry’s words cut somewhere deep inside of him. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“What I mean is that fear is a powerful motivator. It drives people to do stupid, reckless things. Making a Horcrux? One of those things. Being trapped in a time loop until the end of time? Another one of those things.” Harry’s gaze was fierce, blazing like an azure fire. “You are the Heir of Slytherin. You are Hogwarts Prefect and you earn top marks every year. You _will_ figure this out, Tom, because you can’t bear to think of what will happen to us otherwise.”

* * *

Surprisingly, Harry’s blunt speech did have a positive effect—Tom redoubled his efforts to break the loop, if only out of spite and a willingness to prove Harry wrong. He was not afraid. He had faith in his own abilities. He would emerge from this ordeal with his sanity intact.

The next day, they revisited the Chamber so they could question the Basilisk. This time, Tom was prepared with several large barrels full of meat that he and Harry had taken from the Hogwarts kitchens. While the beast ate, they asked it about the Chamber, about Horcruxes, about time itself.

Unfortunately, the Basilisk had little to tell them. It had not participated in the creation of the Chamber, and it was not aware of the dark magic Tom had used to become immortal. Another wasted day stacked atop its many, many predecessors. Tom did not want this to bother him, but it did. They were running out of options, but more than that, they were running out of time.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up. Harry was there, as always, hovering in front of the bed across from him.

“We are going to the Chamber today.”

Tom sat up. “I’m sorry, have I suddenly woken up in _another_ universe where we are both trapped in an endless loop of Saturdays?” he demanded furiously. “Have you lost your mind?!”

Harry shook his head. “We’ve tried _everything,_ Tom. We are never going to get any more information unless we get it for ourselves. You won’t die, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

That was not what worried him. He knew he could not die while Harry was his Horcrux. “The Basilisk has nothing left to tell us. Why waste our day there when it will inevitably end with an abrupt reset?”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting.”

Tom forced himself to ask. “Then what?”

“We’ll recreate the very first day. Do everything the same. Open the Chamber, wait for Myrtle, and—and make the Horcrux.” Harry’s expression was grim. No doubt were he alive, his face would have paled significantly.

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“It is the _only_ idea we have, isn’t it? We’re getting nowhere by trying the same things over and over again. We need to do this _now,_ while we are able to.”

While Tom was sane enough and healthy enough to lift his wand and do so.

“Fine,” Tom spat. “If this fails, I’ll be pinning the blame squarely on you.”

Harry’s answering smile was rueful. “I’d expect nothing less.”

They descended to the Chamber. Tom summoned the Basilisk and spoke to it. The two of them went through their lines like old friends, repeating a conversation Tom was certain they’d had many times before.

Harry stayed silent and out of sight for most of this exchange. Tom did not know what would happen if the Basilisk froze Harry with its gaze, and so it was safer not to tempt fate by offering up the opportunity.

Tom led the Basilisk out of the Chamber and into the girl’s lavatory. Myrtle was there, washing her hands at the sink. A terrible nausea was building in Tom’s stomach, but he knew what he had to do. He had to kill her by instructing the Basilisk to take her life.

Somehow, it was more difficult to do this now he knew the consequences of it. Harry would have said it was because they’d spent time with her, but Tom didn’t think that was true. He did not care about Myrtle, but he _did_ care about her death.

Tom looked to the Basilisk. Then he looked at Harry, who was hovering a few meters away.

It had to be done. They needed to know what would happen if Tom made a Horcrux once again.

_“Kill,”_ Tom hissed.

The Basilisk obeyed.

* * *

When the wicked deed was done, the Basilisk seemed sated and content. It was willing to wait for further instructions given Tom’s apparent thirst for bloodshed. Tom had fed one person to the creature, and now it would expect more.

Tom began the Horcrux creation process. He took Myrtle’s blood and traced the runes on the floor. The pressure in his chest and stomach was growing stronger, squeezing in without mercy. Tom ignored the warning signs his body was attempting to show him; he continued on.

Harry was still silent, still watching. He did not interrupt, and for that, Tom was thankful. This was not an appropriate time for Harry’s acerbic wit.

“There,” Tom said when he was finished. “Now for the spell.”

Harry did not answer. Tom took a second to look over; Harry was hovering by the sink where Myrtle had been. His shoulders were slouched, his face was mostly blank.

“Harry?”

Harry shifted into a more upright position. “Yes?”

“I’m ready. Are we aiming for it to hit you?”

There was a drawn out period of silence while Harry’s eyes traced over the runes Tom had painstakingly painted out upon the floor. “I suppose so. I can’t be made a Horcrux a second time, can I?”

Tom didn’t know. “I suppose not.”

Harry shrugged. “Then let’s try it.”

That sounded dangerously close to asking ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’, which was a question Tom did not want answered. 

“You’ll need to stand in the center,” Tom said in a flat tone.

Harry hesitated, then moved to stand as directed.

Tom drew his wand and stared down at the floor. At the runes and the blood. At Harry’s pale, translucent feet. His heart was thumping too quickly, and his breaths were quivering in his lungs. It was only pain, he told himself. He was above pain. He was immortal and he had conquered death.

None of that explained why his hand shook as he lifted it.

“Ready?” Tom asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The quiet terror in Harry’s voice mirrored his own. “Yeah.”

Tom knew the words and the wand movements by heart. He would go through them all as quickly as possible, so as to not prolong his own suffering.

Tom started the spell. It was as he remembered it; the heavy weight of his magic cutting directly through his soul. When his magic grasped him, that was when the true pain began. A violation of the universe’s laws, the crime against nature that Tom had arrogantly committed. 

No dark magic came without cost.

His magical core twisted, mangling itself as a scrap of his soul was torn free from the whole. Tom would not see where it went, would not know if it reached its intended target—his entire world had been consumed by fire, and it was burning him alive.

* * *

Saturday morning, Tom woke up screaming and screaming and _screaming,_ even as Harry tried desperately to snap him out of it. His body was burning, blazing—flames crawled through his bones, eating them up like they were made of paper. He could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing other than the pain. But through the excruciating, endless torment, one solid, lucid fact had actualized in Tom’s mind: his soul was piecing itself back together. 

This was the cause of his misery. Tom could not create another Horcrux while stuck in this time loop. His soul was trying to fix itself, only it was unable to, and so he was coming apart at the seams, suffering an infernal instability wrought by an unknown number of Horcrux creation attempts.

If Tom did not escape this hell of his own making, if he did not find the cause of the loop and dismantle it, Harry Potter would not only be his first Horcrux—he would also be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think there will be two more chapters, if i'm being honest. but we'll see.
> 
> comments are appreciated 

**Author's Note:**

> find me & my writing updates on tumblr [here](https://duplicitywrites.tumblr.com)!
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Come join 'The Room of Requirement', a community Discord server for fans of the Harry/Tom | Voldemort ship (and characters). The server is 16+ and can be found[HERE](https://discord.gg/2suak9y)!**


End file.
